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To the public, the Canadian electorate, Climate Change is now an ideology, rather than a science. The science behind Climate Change has become lost in the continued polarization evident at all levels within the scientific community, between politicians and throughout the electorate.

The implications of Climate Change, with regard to both development of governmental policy and financial support, are critically dependent on sound scientific support. At the current time, this scientific support does not exist, as it has been clouded by contrasting claims in the public domain, on the part of both skeptics and supporters, in both the public and private sector, the media and, in particular, at the national and international political level.

It is the government's fiduciary responsibility and, more specifically, yours as the leaders of the dominant political parties representing the majority of the Canadian Electorate, to ensure that government policies, both domestically and internationally, having the potential to detrimentally affect the well-being and financial security of the Canadian electorate, are based on sound science and principles.

To this end, the signatories of this petition propose an organization, independent of government, based upon the following mechanism:

“... (An) adversary hearing, open to the public, governed by disinterested referee, in which expert proponents of the opposing scientific positions argue their cases before a panel of scientist/judges. The judges themselves will be established experts in areas adjacent to the dispute. They will not be drawn from researchers working in the area of dispute, nor will they include anyone with an organizational affiliation or personal bias that would clearly predispose him or her toward one side of the other. After the evidence has been presented, questioned, and defended, the panel of judges will prepare a report on the dispute, noting the points in which the advocates agree and reaching judgments on disputed statements of fact. They may also suggest specific research projects to clarify points remain unsettled”.

“The Scientific Court: An Interim Report” - published in Science (vol. 193, no. 4254, pp. 653 – 656).

Examples of Opposing Scientific Positions in the field of Climate Change

Two of the dominant issues underlying the current debate regarding Climate Change, as evidenced by the governing mandate of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”), are that Climate Change is:

1. dominantly anthropogenic (i.e. caused predominantly by the activities of mankind), and
2. dependent predominantly, to exclusively, upon increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

In addition, other aspects of Climate Change remain uncertain, even highly contentious, including, but not limited to, the following statements:

• Climate Change almost certainly has a natural component, as evidenced by the geological record, ice core data, and other studies (i.e. solar, cosmic rays, etc.),
• Climate Change has an uncertain relationship with well documented, increasing CO2 levels,
• Climate Change may or may not have a dependency upon global levels of other gases (i.e. methane), water vapour and/or particulates,
• Virtually all Global Climate Models (“GCM”) predict future global mean temperatures greater, to much greater, than corresponding temperature observations, particularly observational results from satellite (i.e. Remote Sensing Systems, or “RSS”) data,
• Based on RSS satellite data, there may or may not be an 18 year, 3 month absence (“Hiatus”) in observed global warning, in sharp contradiction to all Global Climate Models,
• Global Climate Models need to be revised to incorporate new observational data into the models so as to bring them into closer agreement with the new observational data,
• The 2°C global temperature limit is a politically motivated, not a scientifically derived, value
• Studies claiming “97% Consensus” amongst scientists with respect to “Climate Change” may or may not be erroneous, based upon highly controversial methodologies and/or “data” selection,
• Clarity is required with respect to claims pertaining to both affiliation and funding and, therefore, potential bias, with respect to the private sector and advocacy groups, for both proponents and opponents of Climate Change”

The proposed organization should be independent of government and, therefore, free of governmental partisan bias. It should recognize that a healthy science, in any field, needs to recognize and accommodate data inconsistent with any given, conventional model. Often the greatest advances in a field of science originate in the "outliers" in a given data set. Scientists investigating such outliers, and those disagreeing with conventional models and interpretations, are just as necessary, and perhaps critical, to a dynamic, healthy science. The most current example of disagreement with a conventional model may be the current discrepancy between projections using Global Climate Models and observational data from Remote Sensing Systems.

In general terms, the proposed organization should be organized along similar grounds to:

• United States Office of Management and Budget
• Australian Science, Technology and Engineering Council (ASTEC)
• Australian Productivity Commission and/or other independent bodies.

The mandate of the proposed organization should be to review and summarize the available data, and associated interpretations (in the specific case of this petition, data and interpretations associated with Climate Change) so as to present government, at all levels, with the best available science. The proposed organization will advise and assist government, at all levels, in developing national and international policy.

In conclusion, it must be recognized that the findings of the proposed organization will be highly controversial and, in all likelihood, in opposition to world opinion. However, the findings will be credible, scientifically defensible and free of inherent bias and should, as a result, provide the basis for sound development of government policy.